Here's How Branding Changed in 2023

Companies pivoted away from weird names in 2023, but some made questionable decisions to walk away from established branding built up over decades. Making a good first impression with potential customers is critical for any business, and your brand name has a lot to do with that. Still, choosing a name can be an underappreciated aspect of branding. Here are a few examples.

OpenAI

OpenAI, which has dominated headlines over the last 12 months with its launch of ChatGPT, uses its name as a direct nod to the open-source nature of the company's technology. It's a great example of a tech company that put a very simple name out there that tells consumers what they're all about.

The name also represents broader trends in our use of language, Names beginning with vowels are having a resurgence perhaps with both people and brands.

Max, formerly HBO Max

This past year also included some high-profile examples of questionable branding decisions, the biggest lesson from which may be: don't rebrand if you don't have to. There's no reason to throw away years of brand equity that your company has worked hard to build up. After the merger of Warner Media and Discovery, the HBOMax streaming service dropped what was arguably its three most important letters, rebranding as just Max.

Twitter rebranded to X

This past July, Twitter ditched its bird logo and its name when owner Elon Musk rebranded the social media site as X. As intentional as this move was, the reasoning comes into question. Even though, the name change ties into Elon's other popular brand...SpaceX.